BSA 104 (Scriptwriting) Week 7 : Beat Sheet and Writing Process

This week in class we started refining our short film scripts. We learned about a writing process that can be used during the creations of a screenplay. The process is split into steps, each getting more complicated and detailed than the last until a final screenplay is produced.

STEP 1 - Beat Sheet

STEP 2 - Step Outline

STEP 3 - Outline

STEP 4 - Treatment 

And finally...

STEP 5 - The Screenplay

The first step, that we started in class, is the Beat Sheet.

BEAT SHEET:

-          Bullet Points

-          Working document

-          Fractured essay

We were taught to write down the categories below and fill them in to help us with writing the beat sheet. These keep us focused on the plot:

Title: PLACEHOLDER

Genre: Romantic-Comedy

Setting: Invercargill

Protagonist: PLACEHOLDER (Usually a name, first and last)

Objective: Stay Alive / Get the curse removed

Obstacle: He finds a girl who makes him too happy

How does my protagonist react to this obstacle?: He tries to avoid the girl

Further complications: He falls in love with her

Character Arc: He learns to enjoy his life while it lasts and spend it with the person he love; comes to accept his situation

Resolution: He ends up with her.

Here is the beat sheet for my short film – as it is, it's too long and requires too many scenes. I'll see how it evolves over the next couple of weeks, but this is the idea I originally had:

ACT I

–         Setup: I want to start the film years before the events of the main plot, specifically in the main character's childhood – more specifically the time at which he gets cursed by an old witch. It is still unclear but the idea is that he and his friends (all on bikes) trespass on an old women's property and she curses each of them in a manner specific to their character/actions.

–         Boy Meets Girl: I don't think we will actually get to see the two characters meet, currently in my mind I have it that they already work with each other, and an interest in something more is present, but the main character has refused to let it go anywhere because he insists on not being happy. Even the people around them notice that they would be perfect together and still he refuses to ask her out.

ACT II

–         Catalyst: The two leads are forced to work together, just the two of them and for extended periods of time.

–         Development: They (somewhat reluctantly) fall in love.

–         Honeymoon Period: I want two events of importance to occur during this period : 1) The girl teaches him to be consistently happy and 2) he shows her, on a bad day she's having, how to enjoy happiness in small bursts.

–         Mistake: There will be a B-Story (if I have the time) wherein the main character tries to track down the old witch in order to ask her to reverse his curse (his two friends have already died in the fashion predicted by the old woman). This quest starts to slip his mind when he's with the girl, until he gets some kind of lead and finally finds her. The problem? She's sick and dying, he asks her to reverse it, but she's weak and even though she wants to (been living in regret about her past actions for years now) she is incapable of doing so. He breaks up with the girl, he doesn't want to hurt her and returns to normal life.

ACT III

–         Low Point: We see their lives separately, more skewed towards his. They are both unhappy.

–         The Chase: He realizes that he doesn't have much to live for anyway and chases her (maybe before she leaves for some place).

–         Deceleration of Love: He declares his love and explains that if she accepts, he will be with her until the moment of his death, a moment that will probably be spent in her company. He's not afraid of dying and he will do so a happy man.

–         Happy Ending: She accepts his offer and we have ourselves a bit of a bitter sweet ending, where we learn to appreciate what we have when we still have it and live in the moment.

My story follows the generic rom-com structure very closely, this could prove to be a problem as that structure is meant for a script that is approximately 90 pages long. Some steps and the subplot might disappear. Luckily conventions like the best friend characters and montages allow for a lot of information in a small amount of time, my intention is to be efficient with the way I tell my story and communicate everything that the story requires.


The next step in the writing process is the Step Outline. 

STEP OUTLINE:

-          Working document

-          Fleshed out story beats

-          Fluent Paragraphs